Into Great Silence

Past and present are human categories, but for God there is no past, only present. - from Into Great Silence

How does any one sit through a 162 minute movie where nothing happens and there seems to be no noticeable story line?

Deep in the French Alps, you can find the Grande Chartreuse monastery which is considered to be one of the world’s most ascetic monasteries. In 1984, Philip Gröning, the director and cameraman and sound recordist, wrote to the Carthusian order for permission to film them. It took 16 years for them to agree to him coming and filming. I fidgeted for about 20 minutes and tried to put the pieces together to make sense of the images and wondered why I was there. Then I began to notice the rhythm of life for this silent community as the faces and actions repeated and recurred and the seasons flowed one into another.

I have been reading Rudolph Otto's classic book The Idea of the Holy. Translated from the German an alternative title could be the notion of the sacred. Otto's phrase mysterium tremendum combines the notions of mystery with being filled with awesomeness. Otto parallels this with the word sublime from the world of aesthetics. The ineffable is another word close in meaning but in a sense I think the word transcendence holds more of the meanings that Otto is reaching for. This film is an induction into the world of the transcendent or the great mysterium tremendum.

Why is the title of the movie Into Great Silence? Silence is important or better the lack of noise is significant. The Carthusians are Trappists who are renown for their vows of silence but however the film has no musical score, no voiceover commentaries and a lack of spoken words for long minutes. What we see is elemental, just time, space, and light. It's a total immersion into the silence of the monastic life. Half way through I found an interesting urge of jealousy within me, they were being fed and had the chance to read and study and think without interruption. Not surprising for me when I thought about it! The film focuses on three characters a black novice-in-training, an elderly jack-of-all-trades who works around the monastery, and a blind monk who patiently sits and prays awaiting death and a different silence with greater intimacy with God.

Two striking moments leave memories for me. They were both on the days they are allowed to take a walk and talk with each other; one was a group of monks enjoying sledging down a hill and the other was a discussion whether they should keep a communal hand towel or not.

I was tempted to leave early because of the first perception of lack of action. But again I'm glad I stayed for this encounter with transcendence on many different levels. The notes for this showing in the series The Love of God suggest that "the call is not necessarily to religious life; but it is always to a spiritual life. That spiritual life reveals what love is, no matter what state of life one finds oneself in, or where one finds oneself in one’s spiritual journey."